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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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Multiple Character Training Question
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Black-Hawk Ellecon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2017-01-05 15:27:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Black-Hawk Ellecon
From what I can work out it costs £20 for a month to train a second character whilst still training your main character (provided you are Omega) but you can create a new character and account for just £8 a month. I am a bit confused by this and must be missing something. A proper explanation would be gratefully received.
Black Locust
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#2 - 2017-01-05 15:53:13 UTC
Black-Hawk Ellecon wrote:
From what I can work out it costs £20 for a month to train a second character whilst still training your main character (provided you are Omega) but you can create a new character and account for just £8 a month. I am a bit confused by this and must be missing something. A proper explanation would be gratefully received.



Hi

I am pretty sure that you get an introductory rate when you first upgrade an Alpha clone to omega, And once you have done it then you get the normal subscription rates. So technically, it is cheaper the first time you sub an Alpha, but only the first time.
Black-Hawk Ellecon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2017-01-05 15:59:40 UTC
The subscription web page only shows the prices for monthly quarterly 6 monthly and yearly and it is around £8 PCM for all of them except 6 monthly and yearly which is £7 PCM. So I don't think that you only pay £8 when you upgrade to Omega from Alpha the first time I think that is the current price. But I am a newbie and don't know for sure perhaps someone else will come along and put us straight. Thanks for your reply.
Do Little
Bluenose Trading
#4 - 2017-01-05 16:03:02 UTC
Training a second or third character on an account requires a PLEX or a multiple pilot training certificate. Both can be purchased on the in-game market for a little over 1 billion ISK.

If you wish to train an ALT using real world money, I recommend you start a new account, upgrade to Omega using the current promotion and transfer the character to the 2nd slot on your main account just before the subscription expires (both accounts must have active subscriptions until the transfer completes). The transfer costs $20.00 or 2 PLEX if you want to pay for it with in-game earnings.

You can only play 1 character from an account at a time so the ALT should usually be a background industrial character who can be fully trained in 6/12 months to earn ISK without being logged in. PI, Research, Manufacturing, etc...

Characters that do need to be logged in at the same time as your main will need to stay on a separate account.

CCP gives us options. If you have a substantial in-game income, PLEX is a great way to pay your subscription fee or train an additional character.

If you want to raise capital in-game, you can purchase PLEX from CCP and sell in on the in-game market for ISK.

If you want to train using real world money - the long duration subscriptions (6-12 months) are a great value.
Memphis Baas
#5 - 2017-01-05 16:21:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Memphis Baas
EVE's pricing is set by CCP; they haven't really given an explanation why, but we've observed the following trends:

1. They really like new accounts to be opened, so they'll offer good discounts for that. The $8 is a very big discount, available only to new accounts. Old accounts that are currently Alpha don't get it. If you take the $8 (1 year) deal, next year when it comes time to renew it you won't get the same offer, it'll go up to to the regular $11 - $15 below. It really is a one time offer for new Alpha accounts only.

2. "Regular" subscription on a month-to-month basis is $15, you can go down to $11 if you pre-pay for 6 months / 1 year.

3. PLEX they always keep more expensive than the regular subscription, typically $20. Thus any option that forces you to use PLEX will be more expensive than doing the same thing with 2 separate accounts, esp. if you can get a discount on the accounts.

4. The multi-train features weren't available until somewhat recently, and were added as a "convenience"; again, the price is more expensive than separate accounts because they want you to do that instead.

5. You can buddy-invite (send referrals) to yourself, and start off your secondary accounts that way, while also taking advantage of whatever promotion or discount they may have; they don't mind if your "buddies" are your alts.
Black-Hawk Ellecon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2017-01-05 16:34:37 UTC
FYI I don't get prices in $ I get them in £ and therefore cannot access $ prices. It is £8 for one and three months and £7 for 6 and 12 months. Simultaneous training of characters is £20 PCM. Charcater transfers are £20.

But I think that what you are saying is that when I come to renew in a year's time the rates will have gone up. I would like to know what the rates are for players generally rather than during a promotion as it may affect my desire to subscribe (if it is going to cost £20 PCM next year then I may not bother now is what I am trying to say). So if possible can someone tell me what the real prices are in £ as I cannot find any other pricing for EVE except what I have put above.
mkint
#7 - 2017-01-05 16:47:35 UTC
I'm pretty sure the numbers they use are the same whether pounds or $, so you do kinda lose out on the exchange rate. plex is 20, month to month 14, paid yearly is cheaper. That's why the strategy listed above of training alts on a second account and then transferring can be most cost effective, while multi character training is for if your skill plan only has like 3 months or less worth of skills to train total.

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Chihuahuaraffe
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2017-01-05 17:34:49 UTC
You can have as many accounts as you like tied to the same email address, so really in almost all cases if you want a second character who can train it will be better to start a new account rather than add a second or third character to your original account.

Separate account characters can all log in at the same time (if they're Omega), all train at the same time, etc. The only downside is that you have to pay for multiple accounts, but as pointed out above that's still substantially cheaper than using the Pilot Training Certificates (unless you're rich in game and 1B ISK is worth less to you than the ~8 pounds).

And you can merge and split accounts as needed if you've already created a second character and want to split it off, or get tired of paying for a second sub and don't need to train in parallel any more.

You can also create some free Alpha accounts and just train them up for free as far as they will go and then in the future if you want a new character you can start with one of those free Alphas that you've pre-trained. Just gotta keep on top of the 24 hour training queue.
Skyweir Kinnison
Doomheim
#9 - 2017-01-05 19:22:22 UTC
Black-Hawk Ellecon wrote:
FYI I don't get prices in $ I get them in £ and therefore cannot access $ prices. It is £8 for one and three months and £7 for 6 and 12 months. Simultaneous training of characters is £20 PCM. Charcater transfers are £20.

But I think that what you are saying is that when I come to renew in a year's time the rates will have gone up. I would like to know what the rates are for players generally rather than during a promotion as it may affect my desire to subscribe (if it is going to cost £20 PCM next year then I may not bother now is what I am trying to say). So if possible can someone tell me what the real prices are in £ as I cannot find any other pricing for EVE except what I have put above.



In U.K. pricing then, the normal monthly subscription is £9.99. This can be reduced by purchasing a 12 month subscription to the equivalent of £7.50 per month (£89.99 for the annual payment). These are the standard prices for an Omega. Currently, someone upgrading an Alpha as a new player can get slightly better offers, I believe.

A single PLEX costs £16.99. Discounts can be had for bulk buys of PLEX (12 PLEX is £179.99 currently). There are occasionally sales on PLEX that reduce costs.

You can buy Multiple Character training for £15.99 or by using one PLEX.

The cost differential is due to the flexibility of PLEX (it can be used for isk for example). If you want just a month or so to develop an alt character on your existing account, MCT is probably worth it. If you want a long term training queue, open a new account and subscribe for a multiple month sub.

Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.
Marcus Binchiette
Federal Vanguard
#10 - 2017-01-06 00:46:43 UTC
Multiple Pilot Training Certificate has its uses. Some economic activities are more effective with multiple accounts. Such as Industrial production, research, and planetary interaction. With an extra two characters it is possible to do these with a minimum of skill investment, and after the traning targets are reached no further investment in skill training is required - and the MPTC's can be allowed to lapse. All without interrupting the training schedule on your main character. The advantage here is that once the two alts are trained you can have 3 fully functional Omega characters contributing to your production while only paying for one subscription fee.
Gregorius Goldstein
Queens of the Drone Age
#11 - 2017-01-06 09:10:19 UTC
When you stop paying for Multiple Character Training on the same account you can still use all pilots. Typically you just train a pilot on the second or third slot for a certain task and stop paying the multiple training once the skills for that task are fine. Like a neutral highsec hauler/shopper. A PI or trader toon. No need to keep them PLEXed once they learned their role.

If you train a pilot on a second account you have advantages like being able to log into both accounts at the same time and a good offer for the first year of training. BUT you can't use your second account for more than Alpha stuff once you stopped paying the second sub.

What I did was to start a second account, get the invite a friend and the first time sub offer for the first year and will transfer the pilot to my main account when the first year has run out.
Black-Hawk Ellecon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2017-01-06 20:58:54 UTC
here is the page that says what the costs are and I cannot find any others so far:

https://secure.eveonline.com/buy/

If you add back the discount then it still doesn't make sense as a 9.99 pcm cost etc as mentioned in here.